You will be pleased to know that this blog is now not only good for analysis, but is also sometimes first with the news…
Earlier today, Gordon Brown announced that he had appointed Des Browne as UK Special Envoy for Sri Lanka. Two days ago I broke this news in my piece about the futility of UK envoy. Conclusion: Global Dashboard is well-informed, but not read by anyone in power…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr9FO15CHO4[/youtube]
Yes, it’s only February, but it seems pretty unlikely that anything will top this for sheer pointlessness and banality. Here’s the pitch from the “Put People First” march that will be taking place in London on 28th March:
On 2 April the leaders of 20 of the world’s biggest economies meet in London to tackle the recession and global financial crisis..
But even before the banking collapse caused recession, the world suffered vast poverty and inequality and faced the looming threat of climate chaos.
Governments, business and international institutions have followed a model of financial deregulation that has encouraged short-term profits, instability and an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental.
There can be no going back to business as usual. The only sustainable way to rebuild the global economy is to create a fair distribution of wealth that provides decent jobs and public services for all, ends global inequality and builds a low carbon future.
Wow. That’ll tell the politicians.
But, er, what is it telling them, exactly?
Sure, it’s not exactly a newsflash that the last few years have seen a pronounced move among NGOs away from having actual policy, and towards big campaign platforms that are much more about maximising participation (and hence donations and membership).
But even so, this is a new low. Make Poverty History may not have had the most sophisticated of policy platforms, but it looks like a doctoral thesis in comparison to this. The coalition of participating organisations haven’t even bothered to put together a position paper to explain what they want. Instead, there is simply this one liner:
Our message is clear. We must put people first.
The only clear message I can make out is the one that says “NGOs are hellbent on political irrelevance”.
(See also: Where next for NGOs?)
In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest diagnostician but of the man with the best bedside manner.
Since most of history’s giant trees have already been cut down, a new Ark will have to be constructed out of the materials that a desperate humanity finds at hand in insurgent communities, pirate technologies, bootlegged media, rebel science, and forgotten utopias.
A press release emerged yesterday from USJFCOM (that is to say, United States Joint Forces Command, one of 9 Commands in the Dept. of Defense and the one that’s in charge of defense transformation). The snappy title of the release:
U.S. Joint Forces Command’s (USJFCOM) two-year cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with Raytheon studied non-lethal weapons and crowd behavior.
Well, I thought, this sounds fun: being interested in social network analysis and all, I’m always intrigued by computer models of social behaviour such as how crowds behave and the like.
Ah, was I in for a surprise…